Vancouver Sun
It’s been six years since Steve Dawson‘s last recording under his own name. Given the seven time Juno award-winning artist has credits on 200-plus other records, its understandable that there was a break between 2016’s Solid States and Loose Ends and the new Gone, Long Gone.
Even the past two years have proven to be prolific for the acclaimed guitarist.
On the phone from his Nashville base, the former Vancouverite broke down the pandemic productiveness that led to his latest release. No surprise to anyone, it’s been a wild ride for the past two years and change.
“I was last out on the road with Birds of Chicago opening for the Wood Bros. on the West Coast two years ago and that was the last live shows I’ve played since,” said Dawson. “Then I lost a lot of work with sessions, producing and playing which all dried up instantly. Once it became clear that this was going to be longer than a month or two, I started to think about ways to get working again with some friends and it turned out well.”
Joining up with his regular touring bassist, Vancouver’s Jeremy Holmes, and Toronto drummer Gary Craig, the trio established a system of recording remotely. Surprisingly for someone so vested in studio work, Dawson wasn’t used to this now common method of producing. It opened up new avenues in recording techniques he previously hadn’t been interested in, favouring a more immediate live-off-the-floor feel suited to the rootsy styles he plays.
“I’ve wanted to avoid that through most of my career, but it turned out that I really enjoyed it and got extra creative,” he said. “So we started working as a team doing single songs for artists under a concept we dubbed the Henhouse Express. You send us your song on Sunday, we’d have a Zoom meeting and all go to work, then I would do the final mixes and work to the finished song and send it back to you in a week. We did that for over a 100 people and it became a way to stay busy, creative and get steady work.”
Now that he had a viable option to continue those cancelled sessions, he contacted those artists who had cancelled. The first person to take him up on the offer was Edmonton blues singer Kat Danser. A recent inductee into the Blues Hall of Fame, Danser’s latest record One Eye Open came out last February on Dawson’s label Black Hen Music.
With a roster that reads like a who’s who of Canadian folk, roots and blues artists from Jim Byrnes to Jenny Whiteley, the label is also home to the Music Makers and Soul Shakers podcast produced and hosted by Dawson, which was named by Popmatters as a top music show.
“It’s a big ask for somebody to get the technical savvy to suddenly record themselves, but in July 2020 we put out the word and people started getting in touch,” said Dawson. “Along the way, I began making my own record, which I wasn’t even planning on doing. As it turned out, I did three albums with incredible players.”
Gone, Long Gone is the first release. It features Dawson’s crack touring band of Holmes, pianist Chris Gestrin and drummer/percussionist Joaquim Cooder, son of legendary musician Ry Cooder. Also in the fold is American drummer Jay Bellerose, known for his work with Robert Plant, Allison Krauss and many others. He took over drum duties during the Gone, Long Gone sessions after Craig had a cycling accident.
“That was not good, but Jay is one of my favourite players who I’ve wanted to work with that luckily was available, so I got to work with two of my favourite drummer on the first album,” said Dawson. “He’s featured on the second album, Phantom Threshold, which is really different psychedelic instrumental pedal steel guitar and is due in July. The third album is more like Gone, Long Gone, and collects the remainder of the 22 songs I was working on at the time the Henhouse Express began.”
Having had two full Canadian tours cancelled due to COVID, Dawson says there is even a bright side to taking longer to drop Gone, Long Gone. The groove-laden, 10 track disc showcases his brand of easygoing shuffle, tasty picking and soulful singing on songs such as the opener Dimes, which could be a Band outtake, to country-tinged acoustic blues such as Bad Omen and classic instrumental sashay of Kulanaipia Waltz.
This is musicians’ music that still connects with listeners. It’s been a feature of Dawson’s work since he barnstormed across B.C. bars with fiddling genius Jesse Zubot in the jam band-ish Zubot & Dawson.